Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History facts for kids

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History is a special place in Palm Beach County, Florida. It's a non-profit organization, which means it's run for a good cause, not to make money. Right now, the museum is looking for a permanent home.

Since 2004, the museum has offered fun bus tours that tell stories about historic Delray Beach, Florida. In October 2011, they even started the first food tours in Palm Beach County!

The Museum's Story

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History began in 1999. Its main goal is to show us about different ways people live, their cultures, and how fashion has changed over time. They also explore things like clothes, buildings, furniture, and even toys from various periods.

From 2003 to 2005, the museum was located in the Pineapple Grove Plaza in Delray Beach. But in 2005, the plaza was sold and torn down, so the museum needed a new place. From 2009 to 2012, it was at the Boynton Beach Mall in Boynton Beach, Florida. There, you could see two main exhibits:

• The Fashion Treasures exhibit showed clothes from the 1800s up to today.
• The Barbie Museum gallery told the story of this famous doll and how she impacted culture.

The Barbie Museum Exhibit

The Barbie Museum display at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History was amazing! It had hundreds of Barbie dolls, including old ones, original dolls, and special collector editions. You could also see Barbie's family and friends, along with clothes and accessories from when the doll first came out in 1959 until now.

The idea for this unique museum, especially for a permanent Barbie doll gallery, started in 1999. Lori J. Durante, who was 27 at the time, came up with the idea. She had worked as a fashion stylist and writer. In 1998, she wrote an article about Barbie's 39th birthday. This research inspired her to create an exhibit for Barbie's 40th anniversary in 1999 in Delray Beach.

For this special exhibit, Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, loaned many different Barbie dolls from their archives in California. The exhibit showed dolls from both Mattel and private collectors. It was a huge success! More than 20,000 people from all over Florida, the U.S., and even other countries came to see it. It became the most popular local exhibit in all of Palm Beach County, and that record hasn't been broken yet!

Museum Collections

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History has a permanent collection of over 300 items. These include fashion items, clothes, accessories, and household products. They also have furniture, decorative art, toys, and dolls.

A special part of their fashion collection includes ninety fancy dresses designed by Arnold Scaasi. These were given to the museum by a local historical society. The collection also features clothing by other famous designers like Chester Weinberg, Bill Blass, Hattie Carnegie, Stetson, Lilly Pulitzer, and Iris Apfel.